556 research outputs found
Numerical simulation for turbulence-driven secondary motion over a streamwise external corner
No full textNumerical simulation, based on a Reynolds Stress Model (RSM), of turbulent flow over a streamwise external corner is presented. This work is an extension of an earlier experimental study (Moinuddin et al., 2004), which identified a pair of counter-rotating vortices placed around the corner of a 6 m long model. Experimental data measured at an early station is used as the inlet condition for the numerical simulation. Mean flow and turbulence statistics from numerical simulation are compared with the experimental data at a downstream station and they are found to be in excellent qualitative agreement. For the scaled mean flow data, quantitative agreement is also very good. Investigation reveals that vorticity production by secondary shear stress is dominant in generating secondary flow over an external corner, which is opposite for the case of an internal corner as found by Xu and Pollard (2001)
METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT AND IMPROVEMENT POTENTIALS OF URBAN BASIC SERVICES GOVERNANCE IN DHAKA CITY, BANGLADESH: RHETORIC OR REALITY?
No full textUrban basic services, namely water supply and sewerage, power supply, telecommunication, road network etc. are the prerequisites for city living. Efficiency in managing and maintaining urban basic services ultimately dictates the quality of an urban government. In the last three decades, Dhaka‘s urban basic services governance has been tumbling behind the required standard. Specially, in the last five/six years the situation has reached to an alarming state— resulting to a high degree of inconvenience in urban living and loss of potentials in city economy. Frequent malfunctioning, limited capacity to expand, bureaucratic complexity in availing services, lack of public accountability etc. are some of the common characteristics of urban basic services in Dhaka. There is a general understanding in the concerned sphere that fragmented mode of governing these has attributed the service environment with a complex texture. In fact, fragmentation contributed in terms of multiparty involvement, overlapping of responsibility, obsolete organizational planning, monopoly management etc. Presently, Dhaka‘s urban basic services governance can‘t assure better living, competitive business environment and sustainable economic growth. As a potential remedy, adoption of a general purpose ?metropolitan government? mechanism with prerogatives to plan, develop, maintain service provisions; adequately command the service providers; govern development initiatives; realize taxes and revenues have been in discussion for quite a period within the concerned political and administrative domain. This article discusses the rationale, potentials of a general purpose ?metropolitan government? mechanism to improve Dhaka‘s present state of urban basic services. Additionally, the paper attempted to frame out the structure and operational mechanism of the proposed government.Urban basic services, metropolitan government, fragmented governance.
Impact of maternal and neonatal health initiatives on inequity in maternal health care utilization in Bangladesh
No full textBackgroundDespite remarkable progress in maternal and child health, inequity persists in maternal care utilization in Bangladesh. Government of Bangladesh (GOB) with technical assistance from United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) started implementing Maternal and Neonatal Health Initiatives in selected districts of Bangladesh (MNHIB) in 2007 with an aim to reduce inequity in healthcare utilization. This study examines the effect of MNHIB on inequity in maternal care utilization.MethodTwo surveys were carried out in four districts in Bangladesh- baseline in 2008 and end-line in 2013. The baseline survey collected data from 13,206 women giving birth in the preceding year and in end-line 7,177 women were interviewed. Inequity in maternal healthcare utilization was calculated pre and post-MNHIB using rich-to-poor ratio and concentration index.ResultsMean age of respondents were 23.9 and 24.6 years in 2008 and 2013 respectively. Utilization of pregnancy-related care increased for all socioeconomic strata between these two surveys. The concentration indices (CI) for various maternal health service utilization in 2013 were found to be lower than the indices in 2008. However, in comparison to contemporary BDHS data in nearby districts, MNHIB was successful in reducing inequity in receiving ANC from a trained provider (CI: 0.337 and 0.272), institutional delivery (CI: 0.435 in 2008 to 0.362 in 2013), and delivery by skilled personnel (CI: 0.396 and 0.370).ConclusionsOverall use of maternal health care services increased in post-MNHIB year compared to pre-MNHIB year and inequity in maternal service utilization declined for three indicators out of six considered in the paper. The reductions in CI values for select maternal care indicators imply that the program has been successful not only in improving utilization of maternal health services but also in lowering inequality of service utilization across socioeconomic groups. Maternal health programs, if properly designed and implemented, can improve access, partially overcoming the negative effects of socioeconomic disparities
SPATIAL DIMENSION OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION. AN IMPERIAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE RELATIONSHIP OF HOUSING AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN THE SLUMS OF DHAKA CITY
No full textSlums are perceived to be heavily populated urban areas characterized by inadequate access to safe water, hygienic sanitation, urban roads, legitimate power supply, poor structural quality of housing and insecure residential status. From that perspective, slums are the clear manifestation of urban poverty. This article emphasize that slums are not just simple expression of poverty but there is a causal process that leads to poverty and inequality. It is not a mere static state describing the inequality rather it is an outcome of structural process causing a chain of disadvantages and deprivations of the community living in the slums. In view of this, this article commences by outlining the key elements of housing in slums and through empirical findings summarises how each of these elements relate to the processes and outcomes involved in social exclusion. Findings from questionnaire interview and in-depth discussion with slum dwellers tend to lend credence to the drawing of a spatial margin of social exclusion. It is understood that slum dwellers’ socio-economic deprivation is closely related with housing elements that further leads to their segregation in social and economic life - thus invigorating a vicious cycle. The systematic exploitation, material deprivation leads to social and economic marginalization of the poor people and results in greater vulnerability of this marginalized group.Social Exclusion, spatial dimension, slums, Dhaka, Housing.
The Folio: F. C. C. Magazine
No full textImtiaz Ahmad Khan-Editorial. pp. 1; Rice, C.H.-Speech-Books, Balls and Bells. pp. 2-4; Imtiaz Ahmad Khan-Article-Life and Art. pp. 4-6; Khan, M. Anwarullah-The Introduction week. pp. 6-7; Sports-Basket Ball. pp. 8; Moinuddin Ahmad-Story-A Night Among Pine Trees. pp. 9-13; Poetry-A Psalm of Wife. pp. 14; Ikramullah, M.-My First Impressions of the Forman Christian College. pp. 15-16; K. Habib Ullah-Divorce Your Parents. pp. 16-17; Mohd. Nasim-ur-Riaz-That was my First. pp. 17-19; Mohd. Naseer Butt-The Messenger of Hope and Light. pp. 19-20; Khan, T.F.S.-New Species. pp. 21; Jivanandham, N.J.-Words, Words, Words. pp. 21-22; Manry, J.C.-Article-Christmas in Modern American Poetry. pp. 22-24; Khan, Manawara Shadi-C's. pp. 25; The Folio [Urdu] 32 p
Statistical Beamforming for Multi-Set Space–Time Shift-Keying-Based Full-Duplex Millimeter Wave Communications
No full textFull-duplex (FD) communication has been shown to provide an increased achievable rate, while millimeter wave (mmWave) communications benefit from a large available bandwidth that further improves the achievable rate. On the other hand, the concept of multi-set space-time shift keying (MS-STSK) has been proposed to provide a flexible design trade-off between throughput and performance. Hence, in this work, we consider the design of an FD-aided MS-STSK transceiver for millimeter wave communications. However, a major challenge is that channel reciprocity is not valid in mmWave communications due to shorter channel coherence time. Thus, the uplink (UL) pilots cannot be utilized to estimate the downlink (DL) channel. To overcome this challenge, we propose a beamforming technique based on channel statistics without assuming channel reciprocity. For this purpose, a closed-form expression for the outage probability of the system is derived by employing the characterization of the ratio of the Indefinite Quadratic Form (IQF). The derived analytical expression is then utilized to design optimum beamforming weights using the Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP)-based heuristic method. Moreover, an Iterative Statistical Method (ISM) of joint transmit and receive beamforming algorithm is also developed by utilizing Principle Eigenvector (PE) and Generalized Rayleigh Quotient (G-RQ) optimization techniques. Finally, we verify our simulation results with the theoretical analysis
Medical ultrasound image speckle reduction and resolution enhancement using texture compensated multi-resolution convolution neural network
No full textUltrasound (US) imaging is a mature technology that has widespread applications especially in the healthcare sector. Despite its widespread use and popularity, it has an inherent disadvantage that ultrasound images are prone to speckle and other kinds of noise. The image quality in the low-cost ultrasound imaging systems is degraded due to the presence of such noise and low resolution of such ultrasound systems. Herein, we propose a method for image enhancement where, the overall quality of the US images is improved by simultaneous enhancement of US image resolution and noise suppression. To avoid over-smoothing and preserving structural/texture information, we devise texture compensation in our proposed method to retain the useful anatomical features. Moreover, we also utilize US image formation physics knowledge to generate augmentation datasets which can improve the training of our proposed method. Our experimental results showcase the performance of the proposed network as well as the effectiveness of the utilization of US physics knowledge to generate augmentation datasets
Cigarette smoking, birthweight and osteoporosis in adulthood: results from the hertfordshire cohort study
No full textWe looked for interaction between early environment and adult lifestyle in determination of bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) among 498 men and 468 women for whom birth records were available. Participants completed a health questionnaire, and bone densitometry (DXA) of the lumbar spine and femoral neck performed.We found no relationships between cigarette and alcohol consumption, physical activity and either BMC or BMD after adjustment for age, body mass index, dietary calcium, social class, HRT use and years since menopause. However, male current smokers in the lowest third of birth weight had lower femoral neck BMD than ex- or never smokers from the lowest birth weight third (p value for interaction term = 0.04). Similar trends were seen with femoral neck BMC and lumber spine BMC.Individuals of lower birth weight may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of bone noxious stimuli such as cigarette smokin
خطوط بنام رئیس احمد جعفری
No full textThis article presents a selection of letters written to Syed Raees Ahmad Jafri, author of more than 150 books. These letters were written by different scholars such as Syed Abu al-Hasan Ali Nadvi, Moinuddin Ahmad Nadvi, Saeed Ahamd Akbarabadi, Abdul Quddoos Hashmi and Ghulam Jilani Barq. The letters not only shed light on Jafri's academic interests but also highlight important facts about his life
Impact of Urban Growth on Water Bodies - The Case of Hyderabad
No full textBeing located in the Deccan Plateau region, Hyderabad city has been dotted with a number of lakes, which formed very important component of its physical environment. With the increasing control of the State and private agencies over the years, and rapid urban sprawl of the city, many of the water bodies have been totally lost. Many have been shrunk in size while the waters of several lakes got polluted with the discharge of untreated domestic and industrial effluents. This study makes an attempt to analyse the transformation of common property resources (the lakes) into private property. The adverse consequences of the loss of water bodies are felt in the steep decline in water table and the resultant water crisis in several areas. Further, the severity of flooding that was witnessed in August 2000 was also due to a reduction in the carrying capacity of lakes and water channels. The State has not bothered to either implement the existing laws or pay attention to the suggestions of environmental organisations in this regard. The paper argues that in this process of loss of water bodies in Hyderabad, the State is as much responsible as private agencies in terms of the policies that it has formulated and the lack of ensuring legislation and implementation.Urban Growth, Water Bodies, Hyderabad
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